


Together

by blarkeontheark



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fire, Fluff, Hellfire, M/M, but they can't, lots of mackson fluff, takes place after five years, theyre all stuck in the bunker, when they all want to get out of the bunker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 21:02:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11677014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blarkeontheark/pseuds/blarkeontheark
Summary: After five years, Eric Jackson and Nathan Miller are dying to escape the bunker. But when the day comes and the door stays shut, the two deal with the aftermath.





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> i keep complaining about how there aren't enough mackson fics so here i'll contribute to the cause

Five years is a long time. 

Over the course of five years, Eric Jackson had begun tallying the number of times that people had brought up leap years, and if they counted or not. And now, with one night to go, he had counted seven hundred and fifty three separate debates.

He washed up quickly after Abby released him and practically sprinted up the ramp to the turbine room, his meeting spot with Miller almost every day after he was finished in Medical. 

Today, his boyfriend was pacing back and forth across the room. His expression lit up when he saw Jackson, kissing him quickly before returning to his pacing.

“Something you want to talk about?” Jackson said carefully. “Or are you just excited for tomorrow?”

“See…I know I should be,” Miller said. “But I can’t shake the feeling that something’s going to go wrong.”

“What could happen?” Jackson leaned against the wall. “Worst-case scenario. Shoot.”

“We all immediately die of radiation poisoning,” Miller said dryly. “Uh…Grounders who survived Praimfaya attack us for locking them out of the bunker.”

“Anything else?”

“Bellamy and Clarke and Monty and Raven and Harper and Murphy and Emori don’t come down from space.” He said it with the air of someone who had recited the seven names over and over again. 

Jackson’s expression softened. “I know Abby’s dying to see Clarke,” he said. “I caught her crying today during lunch break.”

“What are you guys doing, then? Packing up the materials?”

“We finished this afternoon. We’re ready to evacuate them as soon as the door opens.” Jackson’s mouth twisted. “Kane’s got plans to be the last one out to make sure everyone gets out safely, and you know there’s no way Abby’s leaving him alone, and I’m not leaving Abby alone—“

“And I’m not leaving you alone,” Miller cut in.

“—so that means we’re going to be the last ones out,” Miller concluded. 

“Hopefully that’s the extent of everything that will go wrong.” Jackson squeezed his hand. 

“What’s the first thing you’re going to do?” Miller slid into a sitting position, still gripping Jackson’s hand. “When you get onto the ground?”

“Smell a tree.”

“You are such a nerd, Eric.”

“Oh yeah?” Jackson turned his head so that their noses were practically touching. “And what would you do?”

“Look for survivors.”

“Really. The minute you climb up to the surface, the first thing you’re going to do is hunt for people? You’re not going to look at the sun? Breathe in fresh air? Pick some grass or something?”

Miller pressed a soft kiss to Jackson’s lips. “Protecting you while you twirl in the daisies or whatever is going to be the first thing I do.”

“Oh, shut up.”

…

Jackson’s eyes were open long before dawn that morning.

He didn’t want to roll over for fear of waking Miller, whose head was resting on his shoulder, but he couldn’t lie still. Gently, he eased Miller’s head onto the pillow and slid silently out of bed, pulling his t-shirt over his head and shoving his feet into his worn-out sneakers before slipping out the door and joining the flow of people in the hall.

There were a lot of them, milling around in the common area, all of them waiting for Octavia to give the signal for Kane to release the hatch on the door.

“Hey,” someone yawned into his ear. Jackson turned to see that Miller had, in fact, woken up and followed him outside.

“Sorry, Nate.”

“No worries. I couldn’t really sleep either.”

Jackson snorted, knowing full well that Miller had been out like a light since 10 PM. “Sure.”

“Everyone, shut up!”

The room fell silent instantly. 

“She’s really a morning person, isn’t she?” Miller mumbled. Jackson stifled a giggle.

“We will be opening the doors in one minute,” Octavia barked. “You know the drill, we’ve been over this. Children under the age of sixteen first. Kane insists on being last for some bullshit reason, so everyone go before him, I guess.”

“Fifty-nine!” someone yelled. “Fifty-eight!”

“Fifty-seven!”

“Fifty-six!”

Jackson joined in the chant, adding in his voice to the uproar.

“Fifty-five!”

“Fifty-four!”

The yelling grew louder, filling the cavern until Jackson could barely hear his own voice. He glanced over at Miller, who was grinning ear to ear.

“We’re gonna rebuild the world,” Miller mouthed.

“TEN!”

“NINE!”

“EIGHT!”

“SEVEN!”

“I love you,” Jackson whispered.

“I love you, too.”

“THREE!”

“TWO!”

“ONE!”

The room fell silent.

And…

Nothing.

“What’s going on?” Jackson whispered. Disgruntled muttering filled the room.

Octavia raised her walkie to her ear, listening. Abruptly, she turned and marched out of the room, leaving outraged cries in her wake. 

"Come on," Jackson muttered, grabbing Miller's hand and propelling them both through the crowd, who parted to let them through. 

"They won't let us in," Miller predicted. 

"Abby will."

Eventually, they made their way past the guards who had flocked in all directions to keep control of the crowd and raced up the ramp together.

Miller rubbed his elbow. "Frick," he complained. "That Boudalankru guy did not want to let me past."

They arrived at the office, piling into the doorway. One of the guards stiffened and began to push them out, but Kane shook his head. 

"Let them in," he ordered. 

"What's going on?" Miller demanded. "Is the door open?"

Abby bit her lip. "There's just one problem."

"What is it?" Jackson realized then that he was still gripping Miller's hand. 

"There's so much rubble on the door that...it won't open," Kane said softly. "We're trapped underground."

Jackson froze, shocked into silence. 

"I knew it," Miller said. "I knew something would go wrong."

…

"So we're trapped...forever?"

The bedroom was empty but for the two of them. Almost everyone else was rioting in the hall. Jackson, drained of emotion and his will to resist, didn't feel like rioting. There was nothing to riot for, anyway. Kane and Octavia couldn't control it any more than he could.

"Not forever," Jackson said sleepily, staring up at the bunk above them, wishing it was the stars. "Just until everyone from the sky comes to rescue us. They'll dig us out."

"What if they've forgotten us?" Miller asked quietly. A quiet question in a quiet room, where only he could hear the worry in Miller's voice. 

"Me, maybe," Jackson answered. He shifted slightly, pulling Miller closer to his side. "But no one could forget you."

Miller was silent for a long time, until Jackson was sure he had fallen asleep. But then he spoke again, sounding exhausted down to his bones. 

"Hey, Eric?"

"Yeah?"

"How long can we all survive down here until the human race dies out for good?"

"I don't know," Jackson answered honestly. "Eventually, we'll run out of people. But we'd run out of food before that."

Miller rolled over to lie on his back, head still resting on Jackson's shoulder. 

"What happens if we're stuck down here for the rest of our lives?" Jackson blurted. 

"We'll find a way out of here," Miller told him. "God, we've survived everything that Earth's thrown at us so far. A little bit of rubble is not going to kill us."

…

By the end of the week, the place was a disaster. More than one person had thrown themselves from the highest ramp (resulting in one Skaikru death, one very lucky Azgeda girl with just a sprained wrist and one Sankru paraplegia) and a nine-year-old Skaikru boy had teamed up with a couple of Ingranronakru teenagers to try to build a bomb and blast the door open. It hadn't worked, and three of them wound up dead as well. 

Jackson, stuck in Medical trying to save the Sankru man and treat the Skaikru boy's injuries from the bomb, was visited constantly by Miller, who was always winding up with a black eye or a jammed finger from crowd control in some form or another. Abby always smirked slightly and busied herself with other work when Miller came by. 

"Got a knife in the face from a Delfikru woman," Miller explained when he wandered in on Saturday. 

"What does she expect you to do, powerlift the door by yourself?" Jackson stooped to examine the cut. Thankfully, it was relatively shallow. 

"I don't know," Miller grumbled as Jackson dabbed at his cheek with antiseptic. "Hey, is this gonna scar?"

"Why, worried about your pretty face?" Jackson inspected the wound again. "It might leave a small mark, but you should be okay."

"I'm not worried about being pretty. You're pretty enough for the both of us."

Jackson snorted, smoothing a bandage over the cut. "There. Want me to kiss it better?"

"Can I say yes?"

He cackled as Jackson shoved him out the door. 

…

They didn't meet in the turbine room on Monday, and Jackson had to ask about five different people before he cornered Octavia. 

"He's up on the stairs to the hatch," she supplied. "I asked him what he was doing, but he just stared at me."

"Thanks." Jackson broke into a jog, bursting through the empty office and pushing open the door to the staircase. 

Miller lifted his head. "You found me?"

"Asked Octavia where you were. What are you doing? Are you okay?"

"I just...I've been thinking," he said. "At this point, it seems more than likely that we're going to spend the rest of our lives down here."

Jackson's heart sunk. "You don't think they're coming for us."

"I don't think they're alive," Miller said gently. "What are the odds, Eric?"

Jackson sat beside Miller, taking his hand. "So what now, then?"

"We stick it out," Miller said. "Together."

Jackson absorbed the word. It was both a challenge and a promise. 

"Together," he repeated. 

And so they did.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @natblid-a


End file.
